In the UK, at least, the beans thing is simply:

Will you give money to charity?
No

If someone sits in a bathtub full of cold baked beans for eight hours, will you give money to charity?
Yes

As for the suffering, it might sound ridiculous, but it appears to be a recognised tactic for fundraisers.
The Conversation: The Martyrdom Effect - Why your pain boosts a charity’s gain

I think there’s a little difference between charity in general and “charity events” or “fundraisers”.

One one hand, you’ve got people personally deciding to give some money towards something they chose to support, which is great.

But sponsored fundraisers are actually a bit weird.

Fundraiser: “Hi, would you like to donate £10 to help cure cancer?”

Potential donor: “I’m an incredibly wealthy man, so I can easily afford that… but… you just want me to give you some money in exchange for nothing?”

Fundraiser: “It’s not nothing - you get to know you’ve helped a worthy cause, made the world a better place…”

Potential donor: “No… unless… no, sorry, that’s ridiculous…”

Fundraiser: “No, wait! Tell me your idea!”

Potential donor: 'Well, I could probably give you some money… if someone suffered."

Fundraiser: “Suffered?!?”

Potential donor: “Yes, I want you to make a fat, asthmatic man run a marathon, dressed in a really awkward, incredibly warm costume that makes him look ridiculous. If he suffers enough, you can have your £10 for whatever it was you were on about.”

Fundraiser: “Curing cancer is seen to be a good cause - are you sure you couldn’t just donate the money?”

Potential donor: “Yes. I can only give away a tiny pittance of money if there is suffering. You could also make the man sit in a bathtub full of beans for a whole day. I imagine that’s unpleasant enough to appease my hunger for suffering.”

Surely we all agree this whole concept is a bit weird?

Unless they’re already on the list, I would also like to add 1980s Rock Star Freddie Mercury, 1992 Formula One Driving Champion Nigel Mansell, and Liverpool FC’s 1980s Midfielder & 1990s Manager Graeme Souness :)

The tasche isn’t square enough for a Kitler. More of a Ron Mael from Sparks.

[Edit] just to note, I’m not mocking your cat - even with its 70s rock-star moustache, it’s a beautiful cat.

Fried Ian Slip

His main talent is “already having lots of money”.

I’ve also got a silver toilet guardian:

Doesn’t scratch at the door, but miaows sadly and repeatedly and bumps into the door until let in.

His need to be in the bathroom if there’s a person in there is so strong, he has recently learnt to operate door handles, to let himself in.

Tap tap tap.
“Meow” (Are you awake?)
Bump bump.
“Meeeow” (Are you awake?)
Tap tap tap.

“Chirp” (Yeah, I couldn’t sleep either)

Yeah, there’s plenty of other joyful weird little words to deploy. Focusing on one is just going to become stressful :)

Oh, those are just to stop the kids escaping from the paedodungeon.

Was it a one off, or do you get to use it quite frequently? I see from your description that it was due to a surprise hospital machinery incident.

When do you expect to next be able to say it?

I used it most recently in the phrase “like some kind of improvised security aglet” (we were discussing wrapping tape or crimping a metal ferrule round the end of some metal wire to stop the frayed end from unravelling). That’s probably the last time I’ll get to use it this year.

Controversial to some, but you can put the tomato mixture, melted cheese and pepperoni on pretty much any other unsweetened carbohydrate base, and it’s nice, and should give you most of that “pepperoni pizza” feeling.

For example, bread, toast, pitta bread, potato cake, potato waffle, pancake, Yorkshire Pudding, pasta, roast potato, baked potato, chips (fries), crisps (chips), noodles, rice etc

Back in my day, we had to hand-draw our memes in the back of school textbooks, then wait until next time we had a lesson in there to see if anyone had seen it.

I recommend that you do not touch the diaper.

I had a play on the demo this evening, probably about 1hr 30 for the full match. I enjoyed playing it, and I think you’ve got the base gameplay loop working nicely.

There were a few quirks with the AI opponent getting its soldiers stuck in furniture, and repeatedly trying to reposition them until out of energy, and a few times where I struggled with positioning on top of something (instead of inside/under), but essentially no game-stopping bugs.

I was playing on Linux Mint - I didn’t look whether it’s Linux native or running through Proton, but it runs nicely regardless.

Without a campaign, it likely limits the replayability a bit - but the general gameplay itself is fun, and a great position to be in for developing things further, in whatever direction you want to go.

Also, just to note a campaign doesn’t need to be all cutscenes and gripping plot and voice acting and drama - a set of different maps that follow in an order, starting easier and getting harder (or introducing new units or map features on each level) would do the job just fine. Also, some people won’t care about single player campaign things at all - so please don’t take my personal opinion as the opinion of everyone :)

Anyway, it was good fun to play. I’ll put it on my wishlist, and I wish you good luck with the launch and ongoing development :)

Big congratulations for getting this far! Well done! There’s some novel ideas in this, which must be quite hard to do in a genre like RTS which leans heavily on familiarity.

Is it currently just single isolated random battles, or is there some sort of linked-mission pre-scripted campaign to take over the house or anything like that?

[Edit] After playing the demo, I realise it’s turn-based strategy rather than real-time strategy, but still the point stands.

I have to admit I love these ladder related jokes - they work on so many different levels :D

Britons of a certain age refer to this as the “Trigger’s Broom Paradox”, after a character from a comedy TV Series “Only Fools and Horses”.

Trigger, who worked as a street sweeper, got an award from the City Council for maintaining the same sweeping brush for twenty years (though the broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles).

Trigger’s Broom (Youtube Link)

May his handful of Revels exclusively contain his least favourite flavour.

May his shopping trolley (shopping cart) always have a wheel which keeps sticking and steering him off to the side when he tries to go forwards.